#give us parallels and growth when the crows get their own show

[kazscrows]

I also think we could get another Kaz fights the Dregs scene. They could turn on him again if Jan Van Eck were to offer Per Haskell enough money. Heck Pekka could even be involved still. We all know he’s getting out of Hellgate and he’ll want revenge too. Give me the stairs fight- like real stairs not the three steps in the little bar area- I want to watch Kaz kick people down them. Give me Kaz fighting with literal nails that he swiped from an axe handle mid fight- Give me Inej barely restraining herself as she watches from the ceiling- “She’d kill them all. She’d pile the bodies to the rafters for the stadwatch to find.” Give me Kaz knowing Inej is there, making eye contact and ever so slightly shaking his head- Give me Kaz smearing blood across his face and smiling at Per Haskell- Give me something that is five times more spectacular than his little fight in season 2- Give me a SoC spin-off so I can have my Crows in all their glory—

[a-student-out-of-time]

Connections Review Part 1

Happy 2021 everyone! Well…the year’s off to a terrible start due to how bad last year was but I hope that most of 2021 will be good and not be 2020 Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. But enough of that, another arc ended, another review due. Now I am quite conscious of length here and I’ll try to make these reviews a bit easier to read, it will still be split into 3 parts as there I can cover the main themes which are; Time Travel, Harems and Maverick ‘Motherfucker Hellspawn’ Storm. My initial plan was to have a quick lightening recap of everything that doesn’t fit into these categories and then review the Time Travelling and Harems but Storm became so big he needed his own part. Oh, and it should go without saying, but I will not cover the Mistletoe Asks. They are not relevant to the arc and are basically shipping fluff. No in-depth analysis required there. And with that said and done, let’s get right into it.

Its Recap time

So, as I mentioned before we get into the 3 big themes of this arc, I’ll cover really quick, and I promise it will be really quick here, anything that doesn’t fit into those categories. So firstly, we see that Kazuichi went around the Void Warehouse and helped fix their lights. Now that all of Class 77-B are aware of Void’s existence, they can help out with any problems they might have in their living quarters, which leads to a funny scene of Kazuichi getting attacked by a crow. This could be random but given what has happened with another seemly random event (more on that later) and the fact that Monocrow exists, this could be sinister foreshadowing for things yet to come. We also see Kazuichi getting ideas to build a robot with Chihiro as that’s his way of romance. Given Chihiro’s crossdressing tendencies, I wonder when the truth comes out and how confused our shark boy would be. But yeah, Kazuichi out all of the new Class 77-B members seems to have the most focus in this arc, not that I’m complaining as he was the most ‘pointless’ survivor from DR2 so him getting actual character development and focus I’m more then welcome for! There’s also Yoruko rekindling her relationship with her mentor Minako. This went better than expected then again it happened years ago, both Yoruko and Minako had time to reflect on it and both wanted to make up, but thought the other wouldn’t accept it. We also see some parallels here with Hiroko from UDG as Kizuna is revealed to be the result of a teenage pregnancy. As I mentioned in an ask, not to bog you down with personal details but teenage pregnancy is a serious problem where I live and too many people I know fucked as teens, didn’t use protection, and boom! Babies! Good thing I have a passion for Danganronpa so I DON’T get wrapped up in that kind of stuff eh? So, I completely understand Minako’s rational here, and Kizuna’s more troublesome behaviour as one of my RL friends was also the result of a teen pregnancy, and this led to her having…issues. And yeah, Kizuna shamelessly flirts with the Anons and talks about Josuke, no not THAT Josuke, simping hard for her. Naturally we have bigger problems to content with but once the weather calms down, we need to sort out Kizuna, especially now that Yoruko and Minako have made up. And that’s the two things that happened which weren’t relevant to the main themes. Now they are out of the way, time to move onto Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff. Hey, Emma made a Doctor Who joke already, so it’s okay!

Back to the Visions

Despite Time Travel being one of the main themes of this blog, not a lot of research has gone into it at the moment, so in this wind down time, it’s the perfect time for Umeko to do some experiments into time travel. Last Arc dropped the reveal that Mikako has being getting dreams of the future, and as Koroko and Umeko pull up at the Kisurugi household, we see that Mikako just had a dream of the Tragedy, which understandably horrified her. Because of this Umeko and Koroko were forced to tell Mikako, Yamato and his father the truth about the future. They omitted Kasugano and him changing the timelines as its not needed but well…when one dreams of an apocalyptic future you know is coming, there’s no sense in lying about it. Umeko then explains about the time travel and basically that since the brain surgery, Mikako’s brain has become a tachyon receiver that can pick up tachyon from different timelines, not just the one you are on. But it goes beyond being able to see the future via her dreams as if Mikako focuses, and someone touches Mikako during this time, they are hit with a vision of the future that involves them. The first vision was with Koroko and she caught a glimpse into a future much more distant then the 2017 that Hajime, Yoruko, Sora and the other 2 time travellers came from, as it seems to be from the Year 2020-2022 so pretty close to our time then. Here Koroko and Kanata, who not only went through a growth spurt like Hiyoko (Poor Hibiki, she is forever going to be the short one) and has married Nagito, are giving vaccinations to a young girl named Sayuri Hinata. Sayuri herself is very familiar to some people as during the last Arc when Akane was trying to comfort Nikei, one Anon asked about a timeline where she and Ayame had a child. This was a reference to Nextgenronpa which is a Nextgen AU on Instagram created by Mikwithnoando, if you happen to have an Instagram account, I highly recommend reading it, it’s really good! The character in question is called Sayuri Otonokoji the Ultimate Sculptor and in Nextgenronpa she’s the child of Hibiki and Iroha. Koroko looking through her medical records noticed her mother’s name is Hibiki Hinata so Hibiki obviously changed her last name, makes sense as she wants to probably be as far away from Otonokoji as possible now but no mention of the father and yes Sayuri looks a lot like Iroha. This has a few possibilities.

The first theory is that Sayuri is Hibiki and Hajime’s child, but both are very busy. Hibiki would have very likely restarted her musical career around this time and we don’t know what Hajime would be doing but he would be very busy as well, and thus not a lot of time to raise Sayuri. Now Iroha would have a very sedimentary lifestyle and given she is looking after Jataro at the moment, this would probably make Iroha one of the more experienced caretakers/mothers of the cast, so maybe Sayuri was often babysat by Iroha, and if Sayuri was spending a lot of time with Iroha at a young age, she would start to view Iroha as a second mother and start copying her behaviour and mannerisms. But that doesn’t evade the fact that Sayuri PHYSICALLY looks like Iroha as well. The second theory is something happens to Hibiki or Hajime and they are unable to reproduce but want kids. With Kyoji, making kids would not be an issue, but a surrogate mother would be required and maybe Iroha volunteered to be a surrogate. However, the big issue there is that Iroha is much younger than the Goodbye Despair cast, and as Mikan later points out legally, you need to be 21 to be eligible. Sayuri looking to be 8-10 years old means Hibiki and Hajime must have banged around now-2014 and Iroha won’t turn 21 until 2017 and Sayuri looks way older than 3-5 years old. But there is one more theory and the one I believe in. Just because Mikako can see the future, doesn’t mean it’s the timeline we are currently on, and you guys remember that awful, awful period during Oncoming Storm when Iroha was crushing on Hajime and wanted to join the Cuddle Puddle despite there being a significant age gap between him and Iroha? In our timeline, Yoruko was able to slap some sense into Hajime, he was able to see he was developing a Saviour’s complex and was able to grow and develop, and it also system shocked Iroha as well as she learnt that she needed to grow up as well. But what if that didn’t happen? I think that timeline is from one when the sense slapping didn’t happen and Iroha did wind up being part of the Cuddle Puddle, and Sayuri was the result of science from Kyoji and Iroha and Hibiki wanting kids. In addition to this we also see Kotoko in her teen years and she looks brilliant all grown up and the way she talked about ‘our mothers’ and Sayuri referring to Kotoko as a big sister, makes one believe that Mikan is successful in adopting Kotoko. Overall, while Sayuri is going to be a headache to decode, that future was nice and sweet, even if it gave Mikako mild seizures.

After Mikako recovered, Yamato wanted to see the future as well, and thus we get the second vision which is from the OG Timeline in 2014, as it shows some Class 79 tomfoolery with Haruhiko ‘testing’ Yamato’s jetpack and crashing into a tree, and Teruya being concerned for his bro. I know its 2014 because Class 79 was formed then and they didn’t bond for long before Utsuro showed up with an army of Monokumas and was like ‘Knock knock, it’s the upupupu train’ and we get the Proto Killing Game. At least Yamato gets to see his future friends for the first time. And Mikako doesn’t get that much of a headache this time so it seems that the further in time she looks, the bigger the side effects. The first vision was a decade into the future so the side effects were quite big but the second one was only a couple of years so the effects were reduced.  It remains uncertain if Mikako has to trust the person in question for the vision link to be done because as much of a force of good this seer ability is, it can also be used for evil. Overall, lots of discoveries on Mikako’s abilities and some hope that not every future out there is filled with despair and there exists a timeline where the Quantum Crew do win. Now it’s a case of seeing if that’s the timeline they are on or not.

That summarizes part 1 with the recapping of minor details and the time travelling science! It’s a longer part then I wanted but with the recap at the beginning it cannot be helped. When we come back, I’ll talk about the Harems and the events surrounding them and hopefully that would be the new length I wish to aim for because this is more of my old length. Stay tuned people! - Review Anon

[kali-tmblr]

The Alcoholics: Parallels in the Lives of Qrow and Oz

Like Sakura Wars, RWBY is a story that depends on the strength of the characters' emotional bonds. One of the strongest emotional bonds is between Qrow and Ozpin, two characters whose lives parallel each other at an earlier stage.

The bond between them is referenced in the first episode when Ozpin fondly remarks to Ruby that her fighting style reminds him of "a dusty old crow". "That's my uncle!" Ruby proudly exclaims. It's mentioned again in the first episode of the third season when Ruby says that the more she gets to know Ozpin, "the more he's starting to sound like Uncle Qrow". And when Qrow finally appears two episodes later, it's to drunkenly defend Ozpin's honor from Ironwood's insult.

I've written of how the Qrow/Winter brawl is a clash between loyal partisans in "Snowbirds of a Feather", but the partisanship doesn't end there or with them.

When Glynda defended Qrow's drinking my eyebrows hit the ceiling. They spent three seasons building Glynda up as someone with OCD tendencies and zero tolerance for shenanigans, and now this? There was one and only one thing that could make our no-nonsense neat freak back a sloppy drunk who just made a mess of her courtyard -- guilt. She felt responsible for driving Qrow to drink. Right then I knew he'd been going on meatgrinder missions with insufficient resources and little to no backup for people who both cared for him and felt they had no choice. It was a revelation that changed the whole texture of the show, and pointed out just how deeply loyal Qrow was to Ozpin.

These examples indicate Qrow's feelings for Ozpin, but what of Ozpin's feelings for Qrow? Ozpin doesn't leap to Qrow's defense or even verbally acknowledge his actions, and seems more exasperated by his antics than anything else. The signs that he also feels a strong bond to Qrow are more subtle and appear later.

Ozpin introduces Qrow to Pyrrha as "a trusted colleague". He certainly is, being, as we later find out, the one person entrusted with finding and shepherding his next incarnation. But more than that, Qrow is the only person in six volumes who we have ever seen Ozpin look to for approval. When Pyrrha came to Ozpin's office, Ozpin waited until Qrow signaled that he approved of her before telling her about the Maidens. And when faced with growing condemnation over his secrecy, Ozpin held firm until Qrow lashed out at him. It was Qrow's accusations over how Oz had hurt Qrow personally that finally drove Oz into isolation.

For the record, I'm on board for unrequited Cloqwork but nothing more. I doubt the twins had good role models for non-abusive authority figures growing up. "The strong live, the weak die" is a mantra for predatory opportunists, not for people whose moral codes contain strongly defined boundaries around what authority figures can and can't do. Yet Qrow has learned how to be a non-abusive authority figure by the time we meet him; and he must have learned it at Beacon, from Oz, his teachers, and his classmates. I can't see Oz risking someone he clearly had plans for early on not learning such an important lesson as that by modeling a relationship that pushed the boundaries at a time when in all likelihood Qrow barely had any boundaries to begin with. But regardless of whether there is any sexual or requited romantic connection, there is clearly a very strong emotional bond that both men value a great deal.

Qrow is Ozpin's eyes in the field, a job literally encapsulated in their symbols. Ozpin's symbol is two clockwork gears, Qrow's symbol, which he must have registered while attending Beacon, is a winged gear in the shape of an eye, with his twin having the mirror image, which can interlock. It's not exactly subtle.

However, I believe Ozpin considers Qrow not merely a valuable asset, but a reflection of his earlierer self. Both Qrow and Ozma are protectors at heart, and despite the fates they have suffered, this fact goes to the core of their identities. Both men suffer from a carefully concealed depression and a degree of self-loathing. Qrow feels cursed by his Semblance and separated from his loved ones. Ozma 4.0 felt cursed by his mission and separated from his loved ones. And both men dealt with their problems by retreating into alcoholism. They even use the same hip flask, which isn't the only one in the show (Ironwood uses a concha-style flask), so it's not just a case of the animators being lazy.

Because of this resonance Ozpin feels a deep empathy for Qrow. I believe this empathy caused him to see Qrow not just as a potential asset, but as someone he could save from going down the same self-destructive path that he had gone down. And to give credit where credit is due, Qrow admits that Ozpin did save Qrow to a huge extent, by giving his life purpose and meaning and a time when he needed those things. Judging by Ozpin's reaction when Qrow's support of him was withdrawn, this good deed meant a great deal to Ozpin as well.

While their breakup is still fresh and painful, both mutual growth and an eventual reconciliation would fit the show's theme of 'Keep Moving Forward". So far we've only seen young people demonstrate the ability to grow and change, but for the theme to truly be universal we need to see it demonstrated by our older characters as well.

This last parallel is only a hunch at this point, but I suspect there is a final way in which the two men are alike. I suspect that in both men their depression is interfering with their Semblances. There is a widely-held fan belief that Qrow's Semblance isn't bad luck, but luck that reflects his self-image. Logically, if he gets his self-image problems worked out, his luck should improve exponentially -- hopefully before his next round with Tyrian. But what if Oz has the same problem? What if it's not the case that his magic has been "dwindling" so much as his growing depression has been blocking his ability to tap into his magic? In the real world, this is what happens with depression and creativity. The more severely depressed you are, the less able you are to tap into your creativity. It would make sense for magic to work in a similar manner. Thus, if Ozpin gets his own inner turmoil worked out, it might unleash the full potential of his magic -- just in time for the finale.

Maybe, maybe not. But we can dream.

[mittensmorgul]

6.21, Let It Bleed.

>.>

This episode is absolutely agonizing, but provides a tidy encapsulation of Sera Gamble's era of showrunning, pulling on all her favorite themes-- torture porn, basically...

Although I did notice some interesting connections to later canon that I feel merit commentary:

This was the point of no return for Cas. 6.20 may have illustrated the "truth" behind all of s6 to this point, that Cas had essentially been in moral freefall because of his own choices (the road to hell is paved with good intentions), this was the episode that cemented his fate. This was the fulfilment of his betrayal.

Thank heck later showrunners would be able to use this entire mess to ground the narrative of his growth as a character on for the next 9 years, so at least SOMETHING good would eventually come of it. But ugh ugh ugh, I absolutely still hate it on an emotional level within the context of the Gamble Era. She tried to make Cas utterly unredeemable before killing him off... I'm still shocked the show didn't get cancelled after s7, and I'm still convinced that Cas's resurrection in 7.17 was pretty much the only reason it survived, when in much the same way 6.20 salvaged a coherent enough narrative out of s6 to hold the season together, 7.17 salvaged s7 by at least giving the characters (all of them) a chance at redemption after s7 will take pretty much everything from them.

But I digress, as usual.

CASTIEL: You don't believe me. DEAN: I don't believe a word that's coming out of your mouth. CASTIEL: I thought you said that we were like family. Well I think that too. Shouldn't trust run both ways? DEAN: Cas, I just can't... CASTIEL: Dean, I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call, and I am your friend. Still, despite your lack of faith in me, and now your threats, I just saved you, yet again. Has anyone but your closest kin ever done more for you? All I ask is this one thing. DEAN: Trust your plan to pop Purgatory? CASTIEL: I've earned that, Dean. DEAN: (scoffs) CASTIEL: I came to tell you that I will find Lisa and Ben, and I will bring them back. Stand behind me, the one time I ask. DEAN: You're asking me to stand down? CASTIEL: Dean. DEAN: That's the same damn ransom note that Crowley handed me. You know that, right? Well no thanks. I'll find 'em myself. In fact, why don't you go back to Crowley and tell him that I said you can both kiss my ass.

And Castiel's fall is now complete. Only instead of falling from Heaven to Earth as he did in s5, he bypassed Dean entirely and dove straight to the basement. And this makes everything that happens in the rest of the episode (from Dean's perspective) just as much Cas's fault as Crowley's. They're one and the same, equally morally at fault (and by the end of 6.22, Cas will surpass Crowely in fault, betraying even Crowley in their partnership and taking the full weight of what will come in s7 onto his own shoulders. Big Bad Status Achieved.)

Something happens in 6.21 that has gained an interesting new significance in Dabb Era:

CASTIEL: I'm sorry. DEAN: I don't care. It's too little, too late. CASTIEL: Okay. Well, regardless, I didn't come for you. DEAN: Meaning? CASTIEL: (he walks up to Lisa and places his hand on her forehead, healing her) She's fine now. She'll wake soon. Dean, I said I'm sorry and I meant it. DEAN: Thank you. I wish this changed anything. (Dean is visibly upset.) CASTIEL: I know. So do I. All else aside, I just wanted to fix what I could. (Castiel starts to walk away.) DEAN: There's one more thing you could do for me. [...] SAM: (sighs) Dean, you know, you've pulled some shady crap before, but this - (he shakes his head) - has got to be the worst. (he scoffs) Whitewashing their memories? Take it from somebody who knows - DEAN: If you ever mention Lisa and Ben to me again, I will break your nose. SAM: Dean. DEAN: I'm not kidding. (Sam is about to protest, but Dean looks at him and he sees the tears in Dean's eyes, so he nods. Sam closes his door and they drive off.)

And this specific variety of mental torture happens again in 6.22 (Kripke's final episode...), with a more sinister intent:

BOBBY: Oh, Ellie. What have they done to you? ELEANOR: (chuckles) Everything. The demon I could've handled, but when the angel stepped in, I - (sighs) I told him, Bobby. They have enough to crack Purgatory wide open.

Dabb era has given this trick of Castiel's some rather horrifying new context, yes? Thank you, Meredith Glynn! From 13.14:

CASTIEL: The spell to open the gate—you gave us the wrong ingredients. DONATELLO: Duh. CASTIEL: But you know the right ones. DONATELLO: I might. But like I told Sam and Dean, you’re wasting your time. [CASTIEL nods, as he takes off his trench coat.] CASTIEL: Well, I’m not Sam and Dean. DONATELLO: What are you gonna do? CASTIEL: I am going to do something that I promised I would never do to a human being without their permission. I’m gonna strip the spell from your mind. DONATELLO: You—you—you—you can’t. I—I’ve absorbed too much power. Y-y-you’ll fry us both! CASTIEL: I might. [CASTIEL raises his hand and places it on DONATELLO’s head.]

Like we can now assume was a direct parallel to what Cas did to Eleanor in 6.22. Sam and Dean may have tried conventional interrogation techniques, but... Cas has the Advanced Interrogation "strip information directly from their minds and leave them in a vegetative state" power.

Now if anyone was unsure of how Dabb Era regards Cas's role at that point in the narrative, even Bucklemming recognize the horror of this specific power, and specifically condemn both it and Castiel's past actions using it in 13.22. In fact, they heavily imply that this specific power was actively the downfall of ApocalypseWorld!Castiel-- in part because it broke him, and in part because our Castiel condemns it himself, judging and killing his AU self:

AW-CASTIEL I haven’t seen many like you. But... [He walks around behind Charlie. Ketch and the angel who was beating him are watching from across the room. Ketch is still chained to the ceiling and the angel looks gleeful at what is about to happen. AW-Castiel leans over Charlie’s shoulder to whisper into her ear.] AW-CASTIEL But you have to understand that everyone has a breaking point. [Charlie swallows nervously and Ketch looks on intently. AW-Castiel walks around in front of her again and begins to remove his gloves. He is calm.] AW-CASTIEL (as if considering a theory) A...point of pain. Particular, primitive fear, maybe. But it’s a nerve so...raw that your will -- grit, they cease to be factors. [AW-CASTIEL leans forward again as he talks, until he is right in Charlie’s face.] AW-CASTIEL And then all your little secrets, they flow from your mind, to mine...until your mind no longer exists. [His last words are hissed into Charlie’s ear. His eyes begin to glow blue and he grabs Charlies head in both hands. Charlie begins screaming in obvious agony. Ketch is watching, tears pouring down his face at the fate of his friend. Just then the lights go out. AW-Castiel stops his torture and he and the angel who had been torturing Ketch look around in confusion.] [...] AW-CASTIEL You align yourself with the h-humans. CAS I vastly prefer them to angels. AW-CASTIEL Don’t think that you are better than me. Well, we are the same. CAS Yes. We are. [Cas stabs AW-Castiel with the angel blade. AW-Castiel screams and then dies with bluish-white light coming from his eyes and mouth. Cas lets the body of his doppelganger fall to the ground. Cas looks at him for a minute before leaving.]

So I mean, when you have the entire writing team aligned, even Bucklemming, all agreeing that this is the ultimate condemnation of s6 Cas, and even allowing s13 Cas to finally fully reject that path by murdering the version of himself that gave into it completely, it makes for a rather striking moral commentary from the current era of the show back to Gamble Era. I don't really know what else to say about it, aside from "Yes, Castiel was absolutely the Big Bad of Gamble Era, and refusing to accept that horrific narrative turn as the truth when every other writer currently still working on the show has accepted it and done everything in their power to demonstrate that Cas has not only repented of these horrors but gone so far as to structure the next nine years of his own character development around understanding himself and his place in the universe, and actively rejecting every possible path that would lead him to that sort of ruination..." well, that's willfully missing the whole entire point of his character arc.

Unfortunately for Cas, things still have to get worse before they can get better... and on that note, I'm on to s7. >.>

[teethdollar47-blog]

My Favorite Books That I Read in 2018

Books! Why would you bother living without them? Even slowed down by life and depression, this turned into one of my favorite reading years thanks to some stunning debuts and absolute gems in my backlog. In the post-Christmas haze I've gathered up some scary stories, a Pulitzer winner, a New York Times favorite, and novellas and a lovable killing machine for you. Let's read.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

This is an Epic Fantasy about the real world destroying your adolescent notions of what matters. For the first chunk of the book, Rin throws herself into life at a military academy, exploring connections between drugs and the gods. The worst things in her world are an unfair teacher and her equivalent of a Draco Malfoy bully. But then she graduates and has to serve alongside her classmates in a brutal war with civilian death tolls and a nightmarish parallel to the Nanjing Massacre. The book lets us take Wizarding School tropes for granted and then rips them in half with reality. Hopefully one one reading this ever has to deal with the horrors of war, but Rin's revelation is an extreme version of the experience of so many people who hide from reality inside education systems and then have to confront the world. From this conceit, Kuang creates one of Fantasy’s greatest origin stories, showing us how Rin grows from desperate, to ambitious, to vengeful, to ruthless. We see all of the social pressures and life events that forge her into one of her world's great villains.

Witchmark by C.L. Polk

I meant to read part of Witchmark on my flight, but the book was too good, and so I finished it before we landed. Miles Singer is a healer in a Fantasy world in the shadow of a war akin to World War I, using his talents to help traumatized veterans when they come home. Something is causing his patients to become dangerously violent, possibly using their PTSD to turn them into weapons, and Miles has to solve the mystery to save them. It’s a deeply compassionate novel about trying to help those harmed by war, bolstered by a supportive romance between Miles and Tristan, another man ensnared into the plot. At one point Miles is exhausted and unkempt, and Tristan gives him a shave. Apparently allosexual read this as ridiculously hot. My ace ass read this as soothing, because the trust between them is so clear. It made me relax on a plane where I had no elbow room. Witchmark is thoroughly charming.

The Outsider by Stephen King

This might be my favorite book into King’s new Bill Hodges Universe, and makes the explicit turn to opening the supernatural there. Without spoiling, it elevates some characters into protagonist roles that will make any sleuthing against monsters way more interesting, while paying homage to the restless retiree who started it all. Here we have an identity mystery: a pillar of the community is witnessed having committed an absurdly grisly crime and have to figure out how it’s possible that evidence puts him in two places at once. We know something supernatural touches this crime, but can’t be sure what since the Hodges Universe began without any of the supernatural. King has created a great uncertainty over how much human behavior explains things, as opposed to Castle Rock where there the shadows always had thoughts. This is covered in one of King’s richest webs of characters, every point of view connecting powerfully to another, until we have a robust appreciation of how feverishly the community reacts to the news. I didn’t think there needed to be a fourth book in this series. Now I’m quite excited for a fifth.

Impostor Syndrome by Mishell Baker

If you haven't read the series so far, just go get Borderline. It's amazing.

If this is the end of the Arcadia Project series, then it's a poignant send-off and also the most fun the characters have been. Most of your favorites from the first two books band together with Millie for something that's half heroic adventure, and half psychedelic heist. My favorite part was seeing Millie's team come together as so supportive and aware of where intervention might be important for helping neurodivergent characters. Respecting the agency of our friends is hard in real life when we know they're at risk, and it's refreshing to see that reflected in something better than the duality of "hands off" or "you have no choice." The scene where Millie might be concussed and not taking her own health seriously is where we start to appreciate how far the characters have come. There are explosive events, but more important are the conversations and developments between people who didn't trust each other a few books ago.

All Systems Red & Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

I haven't read Books 3 and 4 in the Murderbot Diaries series because I'm saving them for bad days. SF&F publishing doesn't give me books like these very often and I need to ration the good vibes. The Murderbot Diaries are warm-hearted and revolve around the emotional growth of a killing machine who just wants to watch TV and be left alone. He's not a slacker hitman; he's rental equipment who longs to understand others and be emancipated. These books have some adventure and risk, but their heart is in weird bonding sequences watching soap operas with a ship's navigation computer. They are warm without avoiding heavy material, and without settling for arcs that ending in gritty choices. The heaviness is in who we want to be. This series is a modern treasure.

Space Unicorn Blues by T.J. Berry

Now this is my kind of worldbuilding. Space Opera where it turns out planets are populated by unicorns, dragons, and faeries? And they need space ships to try to outrun human colonizers? Heck yes. We’re talking about a great found family of disabled people, and queer people, and magical beings, and humans who know they’ve messed up, going on perilous adventures to create a better life for themselves. My favorite trick Berry plays is shuffling the characters, plot, and worldbuilding. Our half-unicorn hero may get stuck in a miserable spot thanks to the plot, but Berry keeps the tone light by explaining that spot through hilarious worldbuilding like the brand of pie that has a density dangerously close to black holes. When the plot gets more dangerous, the characters banter it out. One element is always allowed to be grave, and is lightened by another, turning the novel into something consistently inventive and fun.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Not a lot of Dystopia novels let you see the Dystopia form. The Power puts its Dystopia into motion, from the start of women developing skeins and gaining the ability to instantly electrocute anyone they like, to boys being segregated from them in schools, all the way to upheavals in culture and political systems. It’s a world where women suddenly have superior capacity for violence than men. This way it easily could have languished as a 1984-like about a downtrodden man chaffing under a system of oppression, but Alderman puts her world into motion. We see the changes and new orders from the perspectives of male journalists, poor women, and aspiring politicians, each of whom give us different angles of satire and angles on the world. I’d love an anthology of short stories covering more parts of this world, and almost wrote one about what would change in disability communities.

The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

A Cosmic Horror novel about a very bad tree. Sarah Crowe has wicked writer’s block, and fears that this time she won’t resurface and will lose her contract and career. The novel has Kiernan’s hallmark ability to get deep inside a messy character’s head as their mental health and personal life unravels. But there is a peculiar tree in the woods behind Crowe’s rented house, visible from her upper bedroom window - and that no matter how long she walks, she cannot reach. The pursuit of the tree is both a metaphor for her writer’s block, and intrinsically related, since the fascination leads her to research seemingly similar trees related to horrors that have happened throughout the region. Could they all be the same tree? Has she been attracted to it because she has similar flaws as previous people caught in its web? I bothered so many friends with my theories for weeks after finishing it. The book is a few years old, but certainly one of my favorite Horror things of the year.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

Douglas Blackmon went from county to county across the southern U.S., reading court records from almost a century ago to prove how emancipated slaves were treated. What he found was a long trail of people charged for petty crimes or held without an explicit charge, often with no evidence or even oral arguments in court, and sentenced to manual labor that was contracted out to friends of the court. This way saw thousands upon thousands of people trapped in a new slavery that could be extended at the whim of their “employer,” who could charge as much as they wanted for room and board that the convicted people couldn’t refuse. They were sent into the deepest mines and most rundown mills, and when many of them died from conditions or unsafe labor, they were made to disappear. It’s a bitter book, rife with cruelty that more than one president willfully ignored. These parts of our history are ignored at our peril, and the peril of the most vulnerable going forward.

Source: http://johnwiswell.blogspot.com/2018/12/my-favorite-books-that-i-read-in-2018.html